This page and those linked to it are
primarily an archive from 2001. As of 2003 Duluth has still not determined which
schools to close although it has become increasingly obvious that we have too
many school buildings.

In Chinese the character for
"Crisis" is the combination of the symbols for danger & opportunity.
Thanks to Cheng-Khee Chee for his brush work.

Crisis in Duluth!Five Elementary Schools to Close ?

The 2001 Excess levy has failed. This is not the end of the
story as a levy will probably be offered next year. In the meantime the School
Board has no choice but to make drastic cuts. The Crisis continues.

News Stories on this page go back to last January
when the "Crisis" began. Unfortunately, this format has not been very
satisfactory. It lacks a narrative thread. I have decided to resume a diary now
called

7-19-2001 The School Board's corridor plan
will tend to segregate the school district by avoiding boundary changes,
eliminating voluntary bussing, and creating three corridors to wall off
different neighborhoods. This would happen at a time when the minority
population is the only one growing in the city. If this happens Duluth
will become part of a national phenomenon of increased racial separation.

7-14-2001 The
plan to use of consultants to help the community determine what to do. I see
no point in holding these $40,000 community meetings. The School Board has
already made a decision to close elementary schools. I'm especially non-plussed
by the first part of the meetings which seems intended to teach me how to behave
as a school board member. If I haven't learned how to behave by now its probably
too late. I'm getting to be an old dog.

Howie Hanson asked me for my
opinion of our situation. This is the message I emailed him:

Hi Howie,

Here goes:

Our slow, deliberative, long range, planning process was hijacked by the Governor's stark, and stingy education budget. Our
deliberations have now become a runaway train. We have no choice but to make significant cuts or changes next year that will make people unhappy. The proposal we are considering at the moment has some stunning plusses if you ignore the fact that half of our parents are threatening to pull their kids out of public school. It is fair. It keeps class sizes down. It keeps specialists in place. It avoids concentrating poor children in inner city schools. However, if a significant fraction of the parents make good on their threat to take their children out of ISD 709 much of the good this plan envisions will be undone.

A month ago at one of our Board retreats I suggested that we look at the only other significant alternative to elementary building closings - a two high school plan. After a profound silence one of my fellow Board members suggested that dallying to look at a two-high school plan, while our fiscal Rome burned, was "gutless." I still want to see what a two-high school plan would look like.

We closed five elementary schools in 1994 rather than one high school and now we are contemplating the shuttering of five more. It strikes me as a dirty, rotten, shame that we will be closing our tenth elementary school just to preserve three high schools. We have been a two-high school town for a decade now and that is unlikely to change over the next decade. By the way, despite being an East parent I have to admit that the best site in town for a new Duluth United High School is the Central Campus.

The elementary closing plan, despite its plusses, departs from another virtue I have campaigned for -- parental choice. There will no longer be a variety of schools to choose from. From now on everyone would get vanilla, French vanilla to be sure, but vanilla just the same.

Having said all this I will support this plan, or one much like it, if I am not given any other options because bankruptcy is not an alternative. Time is running out.

I've received over 100 letters, about 700 postcards, and
approximately 250 emails as well as fifty or 60 phone calls. One lady brought
her grandchildren over to my table when my wife and I were dining out and begged
me to keep their school open. Here's what people are saying: